Grayson Hugh's redemption and return to music

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Wednesday

Mar 7, 2018 at 2:49 PMMar 9, 2018 at 5:00 PM

There are countless reasons some musicians achieve widespread success, and then gradually slip out of the limelight, and often it is simply changing trends and the ever-elusive popular tastes, or sometimes simply lack of good material

Grayson Hugh is one of those stories of someone who more or less just took himself out of the picture, after a burst of prominence during the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer on a major label, and then later as an educator in the late 1990s, when he was living in Boston and Weymouth.

But Hugh has been on his own very intensive comeback since 2004, when one last episode with his alcohol and drug problems led to a serious seizure and forced him to see the light. Living in a sober house in Wareham from 2004 to 2006, Hugh began rebuilding his life, and eventually rediscovering his musical creative juices became a big part of that redemption.

Grayson Hugh and his band, The Moon Hawks, will be headlining The Spire Center in Plymouth on March 17, and whether you want to call their style soul-rock or blue-eyed soul, or simply a groove-laden brand of Americana, it is a compelling musical experience from a songsmith with a singular style.

Hugh began playing piano at an early age, and studied with Boston jazz greats Ran Blake and Jaki Byard. But his own style eventually evolved into something closer to soul-rock, often working on the B-3 organ, and his songwriting was so remarkable he had a contract with RCA by 1988. His debut album later that year, "Blind to Reason," went gold in both the United States and Australia, and yielded three singles that cracked the top 100, including the most popular tune, "Talk It Over."

Hugh's profile grew even more when he placed two songs on the soundtrack to "Thelma and Louise." Another smaller hit later on was "How 'Bout Us?" with Betty Wright, the soul singer famed for her big hit "The Cleanup Woman." But despite his track record of success, upheaval at the label led to his being dropped in 1994. Tiring of life on the road, Hugh began teaching songwriting at Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1999. But after a while his mother, who was living in the Boston area, began a period of declining health and Hugh began caring for her when he wasn't teaching.

Amidst that personal stress and other things, Hugh, who had been sober for 20 years, fell off the wagon in 2000. He was able to hold onto the Berklee job for another three years, but his behavior was going downhill, and ultimately he was fired. Things went off the rails further, his mother died, and he ended up more or less homeless, living on Cape Cod. They figure some lethal combination of Xanax and booze prompted the seizure that almost killed him, but it forced him to get his life back in order.

"I sort of fell off the face of the earth," said Hugh, 67, from his Connecticut home. "I'd never been married, because no woman would ever put up with me for long, and I don't blame them. I ended up moving into a sober house in Wareham in 2004, and I knew I had to put my life together. For two-and-a-half years I just lived there, and worked full time at a McDonald's. Just showing up, from 7 to 3, at a mindless job was one of the best things I ever did, because it taught me responsibility again. It was hard work, but I was not hiding from myself any more. Mentally it was easy work, and you'd kind of get into a zone, but physically, it was not at all easy."

By the time Hugh was getting into his third year of renewed sobriety, he had a counselor who turned out to be an old fan. Dean Gilmore from the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission brought an album for Hugh to autograph at one of their sessions.

"It's a state-funded program, and somebody in there actually cared about people getting back to life," Hugh said. "I'd been living in this sober house in almost military conditions - bunk beds and a strict regimen. Dean would come in and talk, and suggested I break my anonymity - he knew who I was. He said he wanted to help me get back into music, and I think of him as an angel. Dean came from an old cranberry-bog-owning family in Acushnet, and we became close friends. I just regret that he died before my wedding in 2008."

When Hugh started writing songs again, and thinking of playing out, he found to his pleasant surprise that people in the business remembered his name.

"I was fortunate to have some history," he pointed out. "My success was not that long ago, and people 45 or so remember 'Talk It Over.' So I had some credentials to capitalize on, and the press was good to me. But it did take a while to get things going. I couldn't get arrested for about a year, but then at a party I met an agent who got things going. Now I also do some of my own booking and such, and still get the benefit of a little bit of my history."

Hugh's comeback album was 2010's "An American Record" which earned lofty reviews. Meanwhile, in assembling a band, Hugh had re-connected with a former friend, singer Polly Messer, and she became the harmony vocalist in his band. The two old friends fell in love, and Hugh married the former singer from the band Eight to the Bar. His 2015 album "Back to the Soul" was on the shortlist for a Grammy nomination in the Americana category, and garnered even more positive reviews.

Hugh's band, the Moon Hawks, includes longtime pal Tyger MacNeal on drums, who has played with stars like Jose Feliciano and Average White Band. Bassist Anthony Cardullo also performs with Popa Chubby. Messer had stepped away from Eight to the Bar's relentless touring, but loves singing with Hugh. And guitarist Bobby Paltauf is an 18-year old prodigy - "People hear him and go 'Holy Mackerel! Who is this kid?" said Hugh.

Hugh said he likes the broad Americana category, and emphasized he still loves to explore different styles and forms of music.

"My 2015 album was on the ballot for the Grammy in Americana," said Hugh, "and I was OK with that. When it can be anything from Mavis Staples to Levon Helm, it's easy to embrace, and not limiting in any way. And there's still a part of me that likes to collaborate. While at Berklee, I was also doing dance scores for the Prometheus group, and I also worked with Kip Hanrahan, an avant-garde percussionist who likes to put people from different styles together. Kip had one group with (rocker) Jack Bruce and (jazz player) Steve Swallow and me. One time he gave me this poem by the black poet, Ishmael Reed, and asked me to sing it while they played. So I have always loved to do adventurous music, whether it's rock, or funk or jazz, I draw on all my influences."

Since Hugh's heyday on RCA the recording industry has undergone a sea change, and major labels are not the dominant force they once were.

"It's all more grassroots and human now," Hugh said with obvious delight. "I've got a licensing deal with Spirit Music Group, and also just signed with Future Hits, which is a different way to place your music in TV shows, ads, or movies. You don't need labels any longer, and you don't have those advances to have to pay off. I still get statements of sales from RCA, and my later MCA records, and it's not like I get royalties. I don't owe them money, but they keep telling me how many more of my old albums they'd have to sell before I saw any actual money. Now, I sell merchandise after my shows, and I love it, a chance to meet people and hang out."

Things like albums now serve as promotional tools for touring, and in Hugh's case, that can lead to some surprises.

"It turns out I have a huge Maori following in New Zealand," said Hugh, laughing. "My old records were big in Australia and New Zealand, and the Maori tribesmen apparently still love me and want me to play down there. As an independent label, you have to think about things like that; how do we get some of my new music down to New Zealand?"

Hugh has decided he's not going to get rich, but he's more determined than ever to keep singing and playing and writing new music.

"I don't expect to get rich, and I'm surely not as money motivated as I was in the old days," said Hugh. "If you're not happy doing what you're doing as an artist, you'd be better off quitting. But I am enjoying it all now. I still get royalties from some of my music on TV or in movies, and we pick and choose the performances we want to play. Polly reminds me, 'You're a rich man if you can pay your bills,' and I feel like getting back to my music makes me a rich man."

"It's going to be fun at the Spire Center," Hugh added. "They have my favorite instrument of all there: a grand piano. I can't wait to show people what I can do on that."